Torrington >> Administrators of the Torrington School District locked in a new electric contract Tuesday, that will save the district over $140,000. After looking at other electric companies, administrators decided to stay with the same company they've had for the past three years, Constellation.

According to Torrington's Director of Facilities David Bascetta, towards the end of their contract the board started comparing prices with other companies including CEO and World Energy. "They're all very competitive," he said. But in the end decided to stay with Constellation because "they're still holding the best pricing," said Bascetta.

Torrington's Superintendent locked in the new two year energy contract for $412,329 per year. However, that price could have been $20,000 lower if they didn't need approval by the Board of Education, a subject Torrington's Director of Business Services Danielle Batchelder and Bascetta brought to the board's attention.

Prior to Wednesday night's meeting the rule for any contract over $10,000 had to be approved by the board, however, as a result of Wednesday's meeting, the board agreed to change the rules for how administrators can deal with energy contracts.

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"I think it gives us administrators a little bit more leeway to make a judgement call that may be time sensitive," said Bascetta.

"It's a very volatile market, prices changed on a daily basis," he added

According to Board of Education member and Chair of the Budget Committee Christopher Rovero the best price for a new contract came during the snow storm a couple weeks ago, which is what would have saved the school the $20,000.

In the end, the amount for the new electric contract went down "a half of a hundredth percent" since Wednesday night's meeting, Wednesday it was .0699 and Thursday it went down .0695 percent, said Bascetta.